Bent Larsen
- November 18, 2025
Four-time Candidate Tournament participant (1965, 1968, 1971, 1977)
Ranking: Chessmetrics: highest world number three 1970-1971, FIDE: highest world number three (1971)
Highest FIDE Elo Rating: 2660
Tournament career: winner of 21 super-tournaments:
3x winner of Hastings International Chess Congress
2x winner of Tata Steel Masters, Palma de Mallorca Chess Tournament, Buenos Aires Chess Tournament
winner of Monte Carlo Chess Tournament 1968, Biel Chess Festival 1976
and many others…
Chess Olympiads: one gold and two bronze individual medals
Why he deserved it:
Until the rise of Magnus Carlsen, the best chess player in the history of the Scandinavian countries was the Dane Bent Larsen. This master of lesser-known openings was the world number three and played in the Candidates matches four times, reaching the semifinals three times. He was defeated by Tal, Spassky, and Fischer, and in his last Candidates appearance, he lost the quarterfinals to Portisch.
Although he never reached the finals, his consistency meant that he was among the world’s top chess players for about twenty years from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s. The period from 1965 to 1973 was particularly successful in his career. Along with Fischer, they were the strongest players from non-communist countries and the only ones capable of challenging the strength of the Soviet chess empire.
Among his tournament triumphs, his victories at prestigious events in Wijk aan Zee and Hastings stand out, and the festival in Biel and the international tournament in Palma de Mallorca are also noteworthy.
His leading position among non-Soviet chess players was confirmed in the USSR vs World match in 1970, where he played on the first board, surprisingly vacated by Bobby Fischer. In three games against world champion Spassky, he maintained an even score, and in one game, he defeated the substitute Stein, who was no pushover himself.
Best games:
Bent Larsen vs Tigran Petrosian
Santa Monica 1966
1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.Be3 Bg7 6.c4 Nf6 7.Nc3 Ng4 8.Qxg4 Nxd4 9.Qd1 Ne6 10.Qd2 d6 11.Be2 Bd7 12.O-O O-O 13.Rad1 Bc6 14.Nd5 Re8 15.f4 Nc7 16.f5 Na6 17.Bg4 Nc5 18.fxg6 hxg6 19.Qf2 Rf8 20.e5 Bxe5 21.Qh4 Bxd5 22.Rxd5 Ne6 23.Rf3 Bf6 24.Qh6 Bg7 25.Qxg6 Nf4 26.Rxf4 fxg6 27.Be6+ Rf7 28.Rxf7 Kh8 29.Rg5 b5 30.Rg3 1-0
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.